The Last Hours of Laura K
24 hour immersive drama and murder mystery
Funded by BBC Writers Room and BBC Drama
Winner of two 2015 Luvie Awards and a C21 International Format Award
Shortlisted for further awards including BAFTA Craft, Prix Italia and South By Southwest
I was hired by BBC Writers Room in 2015 to produce The Last Hours of Laura K because I’d developed several scripted digital productions while at Hat Trick and Kate Rowland, the executive producer, needed someone who could run with something that had never been done before. The core creative team - writers Ken Emson, Ed Selleck, Rachel Delahay and writer/director Gabriel Bisset-Smith - had already developed an idea for a digital drama that had attracted funding when I joined the team. My task really was to turn a sprawling, conceptual, uncategorizable story-telling experiment into reality. The scope was massive, the budget…not so much. Here’s what we ended up with:
24 hours of scripted content
Capturing a cast of seventy actors
Filmed in over eighty London locations including the London Underground, the London Eye and Central St Martins
Experienced via a bespoke online viewer and many many fake character social media profiles.
Left to right: Writers Kenny Emson, Ed Sellek, Gabriel Bisset-Smith, and Rachel DeLahay; Executive Producer Kate Rowland, and me at the end.
At heart, the idea was a murder mystery that satirised the culture of always-on surveillance and social media saturation, part inspired by Edward Snowdon’s revelations, and part inspired by the compulsive DIY sleuthing of the first Serial podcast.
When it launched, viewers across the world teamed up to try and find the clues that would reveal Laura’s killer. Massive shared google docs transcribing every pixel of every frame of the 24 hours - which played on a constantly repeating loop - were set up by fan groups to share information and crack the mystery. It did not, as far as we know, reach a mass audience, but it did become something of a cult hit, and won a clutch of awards and garnered nominations for a few more.
Sadly, viewers can no longer experience The Last Hours of Laura K online, but you can read all about it here.